


invisible string tying you to me

by TripsH



Series: Post-Timeskip Iwaoi [4]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Chapter 402 Spoilers, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Post-Canon, this is so soft it hurts m e
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:14:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25537888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TripsH/pseuds/TripsH
Summary: To Oikawa, home has always been wherever he’s with Iwaizumi.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Series: Post-Timeskip Iwaoi [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1862326
Comments: 44
Kudos: 380





	invisible string tying you to me

**Author's Note:**

> When you’ve had a 30k+ au fic in the works since april and rather than finally finishing that you get struck with a million new ideas… that’s my life currently! Posting two fics in a week is a thing I didn’t intend to do, but it happened and I’ll gladly accept this reality. 
> 
> I can’t get all these ideas bombarding me after 402 out of my head, so this was my weekend project. I listened to invisible string by taylor swift almost entirely while writing this (thank you folklore for my life!) because my brain decided it’s an iwaoi song, so that’s where the title has come from. 
> 
> Final note is that this fic is kind of a follow-up to my other [fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25416127) posted this week here in that it references some stuff from there but just pushes further into canon/post-canon. This entire fic is really just me pouring my heart onto a page because I have a lot of Feelings, so it’s really soft and self-indulgent. Hope you enjoy it!

“You still with me?”

“Of course.” Oikawa swats at Iwaizumi’s hand hovering over his face—even with his eyes shut, he knows well enough that it’s there—but Iwaizumi catches it easily, holds Oikawa's hand in his. 

When he opens his eyes, he’s still lying in the grass in the backyard of his childhood home with Iwaizumi hovering over him, grin on his lips, Miyagi’s starlit night sky behind him. They’d promised to visit their families as soon as the Olympics ended, so they're spending a few days back here together.

“Just making sure you didn’t fall asleep.”

“Nope, I’m wide awake, Iwa-chan.” He grins when Iwaizumi squeezes his hand. Through everything since he’d come back to Japan, Iwaizumi’s touch is something that’s been a steady constant through all of it. “So don’t think about ditching me out here so you can go back inside.”

“Yeah, if I wanted to do that I wouldn’t have asked if you were awake.” Iwaizumi pokes Oikawa’s chest, drawing a laugh from him. “How many times have we fallen asleep out here over the years?”

“Too many to count,” Oikawa murmurs, smiling as the nostalgia washes over them. It’s been nearly ten years since they’d left their places here with their own plans for the future. And while they’ve been back a few times since to visit, it’s different now with everything that’s happened since.

Oikawa’s been so caught up in the rush of it all—the Olympics, winning a gold medal, the attention that’s accompanied it.

Well, the attention is at least partially their own faults since they’d made just a bit of a scene after the match they’d faced each other in, when Oikawa had led Argentina to knocking Japan out of contention for gold. The way he and Iwaizumi hugged each other, too tight and close and intimate from an outside perspective—Argentina’s setter and Japan’s athletic trainer being so in tune and laser focused on each other—who don’t know their history together.

The finals had been the _real_ spectacle, though. When Argentina won, and their eyes locked because Iwaizumi Hajime’s _always_ been the first one Oikawa’s wanted to celebrate with when all his dreams came true. The crash of their bodies against each other, arms settling around each other. Iwaizumi’s hands on Oikawa’s cheeks, and Oikawa’s tears, and the declarations of _‘I’m so proud of you’_ and _‘I love you so fucking much.’_ The smash of their lips in front of a packed stadium and a million flashes of cameras.

Later, a reporter had asked Oikawa about it, about who Iwaizumi was—as if the kiss didn’t make it obvious—and he’d answered back, all breathless and starry eyed that Iwaizumi’s his best friend.

Hanamaki and Matsukawa both spammed the group chat between the four of them with gifs of the moment and the interview and jokes that Iwaizumi kissing him had fried Oikawa’s brain so much he couldn’t even answer a simple question without looking lovestruck.

(“Can’t believe you ever complained that I wouldn’t give you a romantic airport reunion when we kissed at the Olympics,” Iwaizumi had joked later, long after the medal had been placed around Oikawa’s neck, rolling his eyes at all of Hanamaki and Matsukawa’s jokes lighting up their phones.

Well, they’ve done the romantic airport reunion too. But this had been better. Everything he’s ever wanted, really.)

“I think even way back then, I always knew you’d make it here.” Iwaizumi’s hand shifts, rests on Oikawa’s chest, over his heart. It thrums beneath Iwaizumi’s palm, steady beat, so fully devoted to loving the hands holding him. “You’ve always been meant for this.”

“I didn’t always think so,” Oikawa answers honestly. But he knows Iwaizumi understands that admission already—he’d lived through those years at Oikawa’s side after all, always supported him through the sometimes roughness of being a teenager.

That’s the thing when you’re young. You either are so caught up thinking of what’s ahead that you lose sight of what’s around you, or you can’t see anything in front of you and feel stuck right where you’re at.

Oikawa’s guilty of experiencing both those things. But back then, when he was a gangly, uncertain teenager, who wanted to hold the world in his hands, his biggest concerns had been making it to Nationals. Not letting his team down. Trying to make himself better. Pushing himself almost too much and self-deprecation, constant doubts about his own worth and abilities and if he would ever move forward were commonplace back then.

But that feels so faraway now, from who he is now. Confident and comfortable and at home in himself and here. Long gone are the days he’d spend in school drumming his fingers on his desk because they’d be itching, anxious to touch a volleyball. Long gone are the nights he’d spend in bed staring up at his ceiling because he couldn’t stop replaying how he could have done it better in his head—over and over and over.

All of that has brought him here: twenty-seven years old, fresh off winning a gold medal in his first Olympics. He loves Argentina, a place that’s welcomed and accepted him. He loves his teammates, his coach. And he’s still so in love with the spin of a volleyball and the way the leather feels against his hands after so many years.

Looking back now, he wants to take the hand of his fifteen year old self, decked out in Kitagawa Daiichi’s blue uniform, and tell the terrified kid he was that it all works out fine. It’s difficult at some points, painful and scary, but has all paid off in the end. Twelve years later he’s still wearing a blue jersey with a number one embedded on his back—it’s just a different shade of blue and now there’s a number three sitting beside the one to make thirteen and Argentina’s flag on his chest—and he now has a gold medal to his name.

“But I’m glad I’ve ended up here,” he adds quietly.

Iwaizumi nods. “Yeah, you should be. You worked your ass off to get here, and it’s all paid off. You should be so proud of yourself.” 

He is. Really, he is. He had worked so hard for this, years of training and practices and games, making adjustments and fighting to make himself better, stronger so he could stand on an international stage with the opportunity to beat everyone he's always said he would.

But he’s also here now because of everyone important in his life who has ever supported him. His family. His friends. His teammates and coaches. And Iwaizumi. His best friend. His boyfriend, who has supported Oikawa through a lifelong friendship and their going on six year romantic relationship.

Iwaizumi’s always been the hand on his back and steady presence at his side and firm voice telling him _you’re always enough_. All his life, he’s known Iwaizumi’s gentle hands and kind heart and surefire devotion. Iwaizumi’s pulled Oikawa from the brink before, has made him feel invincible, like he can do anything. He’s always loved Oikawa through the good and the bad and the in-between, whether there was no distance between them or thousands of miles separating them.

He smiles, reaches up to brush his fingers against Iwaizumi’s cheek, cradling his face with one hand while the fingers of his other hand are curled around Iwaizumi’s. “Thanks for being with me through all of it, Hajime.”

“Of course.” Iwaizumi tugs on Oikawa’s hand, helps him to sit up so they’re closer to each other than when Oikawa had been lying in the grass with Iwaizumi leaning over him. “You too. You’ve been with me every step of the way too.”

Yeah, he has. Through their eighteen years in Miyagi, through the years Iwaizumi spent in California. Undergraduate and graduate programs, interning after. Accepting a position as an athletic trainer for Japan’s national team. They’ve been joking about that for what feels like ages now, the first time in their lives they’d face off against each other when they’d always been on the same side of the net.

Despite that, all the teasing and jokingly barbed jabs of ‘ _I’m gonna win,’_ and _‘When I beat you…’_ , they’ve both always known that they’re each other’s most avid supporters.

Through all of it, Oikawa’s been so proud of Iwaizumi too. Proud to know him, proud to watch him achieve so much, proud to be the person Iwaizumi loves most and has chosen to spend his life with.

Sometimes, that used to overwhelm him—that they plan to spend the rest of their lives together—but that had mostly been when Oikawa was twenty-one and they’d confessed they loved each other with thousands of miles between them over FaceTime. When they hadn’t even been able to have their first kiss until months later when he’d visited Iwaizumi in California. But even so early on in their relationship, they’ve both always known they were all in. That they plan to spend the rest of their lives together. That they’ve built a home in each other’s hearts that has only grown and flourished over the years, even if they’ve spent that time physically apart.

He knows the lock screen on Iwaizumi’s phone is a picture the two of them took after Iwaizumi finished his graduate program, at his graduation just a couple of years back now. And maybe it’s silly to let something as small as a picture on a phone screen make his heart ache, but Oikawa’s own lock screen is a picture they’d taken outside the cozy apartment in Argentina they’d bought, the puppy they’d adopted together in Oikawa's arms and Iwaizumi’s arm wrapped around his shoulders. They’ve both chosen moments important to them to be the images they see whenever they pick up their phones, reminders of where they’ve been and where they are and where they’ll continue to go no matter the circumstance.

To Oikawa, home has always been wherever he’s with Iwaizumi. Even if they couldn’t always physically have that. Whether that’s in the apartment they bought and live in together when they’re not spending time apart because of international tournaments, the Olympics, or if it’s in brief moments they’d spent together when they’d get a chance to visit each other after months spent apart when Iwaizumi was in California.

(The apartment _is_ nice, though. Really nice. It’s a place they’ve got pictures on the walls from childhood to adulthood—twenty-seven years of memories together. Where they adopted their dog, who’s currently staying with their neighbor while they’re at the Olympics. Where they quarantined together throughout a fucking pandemic. It’s a place filled with love because they’ve made it theirs, the shared space they finally deserve to come home to whenever they can after so many years spent physically apart.)

To him, home is the sound of Iwaizumi's heartbeat in his ears when Oikawa rests his head on his chest and Iwaizumi’s hands slipping under Oikawa’s hoodie to touch his bare skin and the tangle of their legs in _their_ bed. Home is the heat of summer as they sit close together on the balcony of their apartment. Their first kiss in the quiet of Iwaizumi’s tiny apartment in California. The way they’d meet each other in the middle of a crowded airport and crash into each other in a hug and press their hands to each other’s cheeks and kiss after a long time spent apart. When he’d flown to California for Iwaizumi’s graduation. When Iwaizumi had been with him when he officially got his Argentinian citizenship and had been the first person Oikawa had called when he’d been selected for the national team.

They’ve made all that and more theirs. That’ll never change.

But here, where they sit now is the place that’s tied them so tightly together in the first place. Their houses, their backyards, this town. And Miyagi may not officially be the place either of them call home anymore, but it’s got pieces of them both, memories of their entire lives together. In the spot at the park where they’d bury anything of value they found as kids and in the creak of swing set they spent so many days on. In the crack in the sidewalk, the uneven pavement Oikawa tripped over as a kid and begged Iwaizumi to carry him home because he thought he was going to die when he’d seen his knees gushing blood. In the gyms frozen in time, still the same even though their feet haven’t touched those courts in so long, but how they’d held defining experiences for them both. In Oikawa’s old bedroom the night before they’d both got on a plane to leave Japan and carve their own paths to their futures—the last night they’d spend curled around each other in an eerily empty room they’d spent so many of their days in. How strongly his heart had ached to kiss Iwaizumi, then, but he hadn’t done so until much, much later. 

If home is in all the memories they’ve made since, then it’s here too, where their lives had become so interwoven in the first place. Under Miyagi’s daylight and sunsets and night skies.

Oikawa looks down in the moment of quiet when he feels a squeeze against his hand. They hadn’t let go of each other when Iwaizumi pulled Oikawa up to sit, but face each other now, close together, fingers wrapped around each other.

Maybe it’s sentimental, but he can’t help but think that maybe that’s all they’ve ever needed. Iwaizumi’s fingers curled around Oikawa’s like a makeshift wedding ring, unofficially official. Infinity just a mere moment from spilling forward into a spoken reality. Something they can make happen at any time because they know it’s in their futures together. Expected. Yearned for.

It’s not like Oikawa hasn’t thought about getting married before, after all. Sometimes, when he passes a store that sells engagement rings and he can’t help but stop and look, he’ll think that could be theirs. Sometimes, when he ends up searching for them online on his phone in quiet moments his thoughts wander to it, to getting married. 

Maybe it’s because his heart feels ready to burst after days of one thing after another, but he takes a leap.

“We should get married, Iwa-chan.” It’s so casual, like it’s not a life-altering question. But for them, it really isn’t. For them, a marriage proposal has never had to be something earth-shattering. Much like how they first confessed they’d loved each other over FaceTime when they were twenty-one. It’s something that doesn’t alter the entire universe because it’s an expected development, a natural shift.

Iwaizumi looks surprised for a moment, just a split second, really, before he melts into a smile. “Is this you asking me?”

Oikawa smiles too, leaning in to close the already small gap of distance between them, and bumps his forehead against Iwaizumi’s. “Depends. Is this you saying yes?”

“That’s a stupid question. Don’t you already know the answer?”

“Humor me, then?” _I want to hear you say it._

Iwaizumi laughs, breathless and so, _so_ happy as he rests his hands on Oikawa’s cheeks. “Yes. Yes, Tooru. _Yes._ ”

Oikawa kisses him, pulls him close and doesn’t let go because they’ve got the rest of forever to spend together. He’s overwhelmingly happy and so, so in love and it’s _perfect._

“I love you,” Iwaizumi says when they break the kiss. And right then, Oikawa feels as breathless and in love as when he was a teenager and they’d sit out here, laughing so hard about something that they couldn’t stop. “I love you, Tooru.”

“Me too. I love you too, Hajime.” They’re both crying now, and maybe he’s cried too much the last few days, but it’s okay. This is all he’s ever wanted, after all. 

Once, Iwaizumi had told him that one day they’re going to have all the time in the world.

Maybe this is just the beginning of that—in a backyard they spent so many of their days and nights in as kids and teenagers, when they’d both faced off on the grandest stage of them all only days ago, when Oikawa had initiated a spontaneous proposal, no ring or plan but still just as strong a promise of forever and Iwaizumi had accepted.

They’ve made good on twenty-seven years of promises—both in close proximity and thousands of miles apart. They’ve become so intertwined over the years, thread wrapped round and round, tying them together no matter where they are.

Now it’ll be further anchored to the gold of wedding rings too. Which… well, they don’t have _yet_ , but they will. They’ll have that and everything that comes with it—

A wedding with their families and friends, in Argentina in the spring, maybe. Hanamaki and Matsukawa will want to tell embarrassing stories from high school and how they always knew this is where Oikawa and Iwaizumi would end up. Maybe their dog can carry the rings in a basket like pictures he’s seen online before because what kind of parents would they be if they didn’t include their dog in their wedding? Iwaizumi will slide a ring on Oikawa’s finger, and he’ll wear it forever, either on his hand or in a chain around his neck when he has a game, part of Iwaizumi always with him, tying them together permanently.

One day soon, that dream’s going to be something they make a reality together. Until then and for a long time after, they’ll continue to take every step toward the future together, hand in hand, side by side. _Always._

**Author's Note:**

> My favorite thing is to write about these two loving and supporting each other always :’)


End file.
